LG PC Blu-ray/HD-DVD Combo Drive Preview

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Note: This preview is based on early-release hardware and early software. It would be premature to draw any final conclusions from the results presented here. Because this is an interesting and potentially seminal piece of hardware in the battle of high-definition disc formats, we put it through essentially the same process we would for review hardware.

Recently, LG Electronics began shipping the Super Blu Player, a consumer Blu-ray player that can also play back HD-DVD movies, though some advanced HD-DVD interactive features are missing. Now the company is readying a PC drive that can burn Blu-ray, DVD, and CD discs. It also serves as an HD-DVD ROM drive and, with the right software, can play back HD-DVD movies.

The movement towards shipping combo drives has been a slow process, though it’s worth remembering that it was several years before drives capable of burning both DVD-R and DVD+R drives hit the market. The stakes are considerably higher in the Blu-ray versus HD-DVD battle, so there’s keen interest among consumers in seeing successful combo drives. On the other hand, primary stakeholders in the format wars—Toshiba on the HD-DVD side and Sony on the Blu-ray side—are probably less happy with the idea.

Hewlett-Packard is planning to be the first company to ship systems using LG’s combo drive. HP loaned us a prototype PC with an early LG drive installed for us to test. What we found was a drive that’s pretty polished as a playback device, but is still a work in progress on the burner side. Let’s take a closer look. Continued…